Saturday, November 6, 2021

Neighborhood Living- Barra and Celeste

 Oh my goodness, how I have missed neighborhood living.  For 265 days we lived in the Fresh Pond area where there's a ton of apartments and barely any local shops and restaurants that you can walk to.  We actually only had one restaurant we could walk to (it was a Gran Gusto and it was quite good.) There were no coffee shops around, no local shops to visit, and it was really taking a toll on me.  The first week we lived in our new place, we made it a point to get out and enjoy walking around a neighborhood again.  

We checked out Barra, a small Mexican place on Bow Street.  I'm not sure how this place operates in the winter.  I think they have like five or six tables inside but they do have a small heated patio in the back and a small patio in the front.  The cocktail menu is super impressive and all the food we tried was delicious.  We sat on the patio kind of in awe of being in a neighborhood again.  It was such a nice feeling to be able to walk somewhere and enjoy neighborhood life again. I'll definitely come back here, although I felt like the portions were a bit small for the price.  The waitstaff was amazing and when we told them we were new to the neighborhood they gave us a tour of their interior and exterior seating options, even though they had a lot of customers to deal with.



After Barra, we walked up to the Prospect Tower to take in the views.  We could feel our city selves coming back and it felt great!


Later that week, we went to Celeste for dinner.  We've only heard amazing things about this place and I was definitely excited to try it out.  It's a Peruvian restaurant that specializes in a small menu and lots of pisco cocktails.  I was absolutely blown away by our experience here.  Again, this is a super small space so I'm not sure how it was functioning even before a pandemic but with the added (unheated) patio, there's ample seating.  The service is phenomenal.  We both got the pisco cocktails which was a bit of an adventure for me because it had egg whites in it.  (Ummm- I've been missing out because those were delicious!) We started with an arugula salad and it met my high standards for a salad- fresh, perfectly dressed, with just the right accouterments.  JO got the seafood risotto (he said it was quite good but lacked vegetables) and I got the Peruvian shrimp scampi, which I would say was one of the best meals I have ever had.  The dessert was a little lackluster but overall I can't believe this amazing restaurant is only a three minute walk from our new place.  





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